1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to printing methods and systems and, more particularly, to printing services in a communications network.
2. Copyright and Trademark Notice
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material, which is subject to copyright protection. The owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by any one of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrights whatsoever.
Certain marks referenced herein may be common law or registered trademarks of third parties affiliated or unaffiliated with the applicant or the assignee. Use of these marks is by way of example and shall not be construed to limit the scope of this invention to material associated with such marks.
3. Related Art
Currently, to print one or more documents a user interacts with a computing system such as a personal computer or a computer terminal connected to a computer network. Using the computing system the user submits a print request for printing one or more pages of the document. When one or more print requests are submitted to a single printer, the print requests are queued up. The printer then processes each request in order of priority. Computer software can be executed on the computing system to allow a user to manipulate the printing order for each request, to pause the printing process, or to delete a print request from the queue.
Unfortunately, once a print request is submitted and the print data is transferred to the printer, the user loses control over the printing process. In other words, documents that are entered into the print queue are typically printed without the user having a chance to decide when he wishes for the printing process to start, or end, for that matter. This lack of control over the printing process is undesirable, especially when the printer is not within the immediate vicinity of the computing system where the print request is generated. For example, in the case of a shared network printer, multiple print requests may be submitted by multiple users. Some or all these users may be unable to immediately retrieve the printed results, due to time or distances constraints.
Furthermore, without the intervention of a human operator, in most instances printing to a shared printer can be chaotic. For example, the users will have to sort through the multiple printed material to ensure that they pick the printed material and pages that belong to them. Also, processing and printing large files occasionally may take a very long time, and one user with a smaller print job may have to wait for a larger print job to finish if the print request for the smaller job was received after the print request for the larger job. It would be very useful, if the users had the option to control the printing process at the printing location by interacting with the printing device.
A system and method that provides for multiple users to submit multiple print requests to a shared printer first and later choose the printing time and order at the printing site are desirable.
In accordance with this invention, a system and corresponding methods that facilitate printing and controlling the printing process for multiple documents on a printing apparatus are provided. Multiple users may select a document for printing by interacting with control menus available at the printing site.
For purposes of summarizing, certain aspects, advantages, and novel features of the invention have been described herein. It is to be understood that not necessarily all such advantages may be achieved in accordance with any one particular embodiment of the invention. Thus, the invention may be embodied or carried out in a manner that achieves or optimizes one advantage or group of advantages as taught herein without necessarily achieving other advantages as may be taught or suggested herein.
In one embodiment, a printing system for processing one or more print requests includes: a print queue for storing data associated with one or more print requests, a display screen for displaying the content of the print queue; control interface for controlling the processing order of print requests in the queue; and executable code stored in a memory, wherein execution of the code by a processor causes the processor to process the print requests stored in the queue in response to user interaction with the control interface.
In another embodiment, a method for processing one or more print requests submitted to a printer, said printer having a queue, a display, and user interface, includes: storing the print requests in the queue; displaying the print requests stored in the queue; reconfiguring the order of the print requests stored in the queue; selecting a print request stored in the queue; printing the selected print request; deleting the selected print request; displaying the content of the file associated with the selected print request on the display screen; scrolling through the content of the file associated with the selected print request; selecting the next print request stored in the queue; or selecting the prior print request stored in the queue.
In still another embodiment, a printing system for processing one or more printing requests, includes: a means for storing said one or more print requests in a first order; a means for rearranging said requests in a second order; a means for displaying the content of the storing means; and a means for displaying the content of said one or more print requests.
These and other embodiments of the present invention will also become readily apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description of the embodiments having reference to the attached figures, the invention not being limited to any particular embodiments disclosed.